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This page is generated from skills/eks-upgrade-check/references/upgrade-insights.md. Edit the source, not this page.

Vendored skill

This skill is sourced from eks-upgrade-check, also maintained by the APEX team.

AWS Upgrade Insights

Purpose​

Retrieve and interpret official AWS EKS Upgrade Insights — pre-upgrade checks that AWS runs against your cluster.

How to Check​

Step 1: Get All Insights​

  1. Call get_eks_insights with the cluster name
  2. Filter for category UPGRADE_READINESS
  3. Record each insight: ID, status, name, description

Step 2: Get Details for Non-Passing Insights​

For any insight with status other than PASSING:

  1. Call get_eks_insights with the specific insight_id
  2. Record: detailed description, recommendation, affected resources

CLI fallback (when the EKS MCP server is unavailable)​

If the get_eks_insights MCP tool is not available, use the AWS CLI directly (this is the CLI fallback the top-level skill promises):

# Step 1 equivalent — list all upgrade-readiness insights
aws eks list-insights --cluster-name <cluster> --region <region> \
  --filter categories=UPGRADE_READINESS

# Step 2 equivalent — detail one non-PASSING insight
aws eks describe-insight --cluster-name <cluster> --region <region> --id <insight-id>

Requires eks:ListInsights and eks:DescribeInsight. If neither the MCP tool nor the CLI can reach Insights, report Category 7 as UNKNOWN / not-scored — do NOT score it 0 (a denied read is not a clean pass).

Step 3: Classify Findings​

Insight StatusSeverity
PASSINGNONE
WARNINGMEDIUM
ERRORHIGH
UNKNOWNLOW

Step 4: Cross-Reference with Other Sections​

AWS Upgrade Insights often overlap with findings from other sections (deprecated APIs, add-on compatibility). When reporting:

  • Note if an insight confirms a finding from another section
  • Do NOT double-count in the score. Match each insight to a category finding by subject key: the deprecated API group/version/resource (e.g. flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta3) for Category 2, or the add-on name (e.g. vpc-cni) for Category 4. When an insight's subject key matches a finding already scored in that category, suppress the insight's points (score it 0) and keep the insight only as confirmation evidence in the report — do NOT add its WARNING/ERROR points on top of the category that already owns the finding.
  • Only insights that reveal issues NOT caught by any other check contribute points under Category 7. Highlight those.

Important Context for Users​

AWS Upgrade Insights checks multiple versions ahead, not just the immediate target. For example, if upgrading from 1.30 → 1.31, AWS may flag deprecated APIs that are removed in 1.33. This is valuable forward-looking information but should not be confused with immediate blockers.

Explain this distinction clearly in the report:

  • "Blocked for target version" = must fix before upgrading
  • "Flagged by AWS for future version" = plan to fix, but not a blocker for this upgrade

Score Impact​

Canonical scoring is defined in references/report-generation.md §Category 7. Quick reference: ERROR = 5 pts, WARNING = 2 pts, PASSING = 0 pts, UNKNOWN = 0 pts (LOW severity, informational only). Max category = 10 pts. The status enum is PASSING/WARNING/ERROR/UNKNOWN — there is no "FAILING" status.